Hunting a Lost Calf

We found junior Holstein critter just south of here.

While the boss and Liz were at the ball game (they had a great time btw and the Mets won 9-0) Alan and I undertook to find a missing calf. Bubbles, a big Ocean View Extra Special daughter of mine, had a bull calf by SWD Valiant out in the heifer pasture a couple days ago. We let her stay with him for a day then went to bring her down...and couldn't find him. It's a big pasture with a big hill.

If we didn't find him quickly yesterday we were going to put her back out so she could find him for us, but that wasn't our top choice as we would have had to sort her out from about twenty or so young stock again and she is a very hard to handle critter. She is a big cow and will charge you. I was wishing we worked stock on horseback like our rancher friends. Then we could have made short work of the job.

First we searched the thistle patch at the bottom of the hill. You wouldn't think a hundred-pound, bright black and white spotted calf would be easy to hide. However if mama pushes one into a clump of thistles it will lie invisible and never move even if you walk past it a foot away. We once searched all day for one that was lying right under a forage wagon that we must have passed twenty times.

After plenty of scratches and scrapes from the miserable thistles we decided that it just wasn't in there and headed up the great big hill behind the house. He went east and I went straight south.




A few minutes later I heard a hoarse moo somewhere south of me. I couldn't see it because of a patch of wild roses the size of a truck. It may sound silly but I can do a pretty successful imitation of a mama cow calling her baby. I proceeded to do so. Soon I could hear eager little moos hurrying in my direction. I pulled out my dog training whistle and called Alan. (Yeah, besides using the shepherd's whistle for the dogs I have always called the kids with it too...you can hear it a long ways away...people in town always thought I was awful calling my kids with a dog whistle, but it always got them home when I needed them.)

The kid is a lot more likely to be able to grab a calf on the hoof than I am. He hustled over.

We still hadn't actually seen the calf, but he went down behind the clump of wild rose bushes to where we could hear it bawling eagerly for mama.

When it saw him it took off at a dead run.
Straight back at me.
I was wearing my camera, carrying Alan's 12 gauge and a sorting stick. Needless to say I didn't grab it but just got out of the way.....Looked like Secretariat sailing away back to the north over the hill and gone....feet barely touching the ground in that weird off center run that cattle have.

Alan said..."point where it goes for me and I will run it down."

I did and he did....at least a quarter mile over the top of the hill, down the other side and back into the original thistle patch. When he caught up he grabbed its hips and pulled it to a stop. It fought like a wild thing, which I guess it was, but he put the halter I was carrying on it and began to lead it to the barn.... after we looked for his hat for ten minutes or so...it was lost in the race.

All the way to the barn the little bugger attacked him, charging his legs and bawling and snorting. I was like a wild rodeo bull in miniature. I felt sorry for it so..... scared at not finding its mother and instead being pursued by such a strange blond wolf. All is well that end well though and it is safe in the barn where no coyotes or turkey vultures roam.

But oh, how I wish I could run like that. And a long time ago I somewhere heard a story about how the breeder of SWD Valiant lost her prefix and couldn't use it on the calf, which went on to be a highly regarded Holstein sire. Thus she used SWD, which stood for Sold With Dam, a common auction term. I have no idea if this story is true but I think I will name my little bull, Frieland RWA Bat Man....RWA for runs with Alan.